{"id":17,"date":"2007-05-07T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-07T16:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/?p=17"},"modified":"2007-10-24T21:25:32","modified_gmt":"2007-10-24T21:25:32","slug":"a-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/2007\/05\/07\/a-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"A Blessing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted by Tall Skinny Kiwi<\/a>, but it is very much worth reprinting!<\/p>\n

Beannacht (“Blessing”) by John O\u2019Donohue,
\nfrom his book of Christian and Celtic wisdom titled Anam Cara<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the day when
\nthe weight deadens
\non your shoulders
\nand you stumble,
\nmay the clay dance
\nto balance you.And when your eyes
\nfreeze behind
\nthe grey window
\nand the ghost of loss
\ngets in to you,
\nmay a flock of colours,
\nindigo, red, green,
\nand azure blue
\ncome to awaken in you
\na meadow of delight.<\/p>\n

When the canvas frays
\nin the currach of thought
\nand a stain of ocean
\nblackens beneath you,
\nmay there come across the waters
\na path of yellow moonlight
\nto bring you safely home.<\/p>\n

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
\nmay the clarity of light be yours,
\nmay the fluency of the ocean be yours,
\nmay the protection of the ancestors be yours.
\nAnd so may a slow
\nwind work these words
\nof love around you,
\nan invisible cloak
\nto mind your life.<\/p>\n

The language is beautiful. Our usual blessing to each other is “Have a nice day”, or “Get well soon”. That’s nice but this is poetic and well thought out. In my childhood, I think something like this would have been looked at as purely sentimental and flowery – a waste time. But can words like this actually have power? No, I’m not talking about a Wiccan-esqe magic spell kind of power. Or a “good vibes” karma spreading kind of power. But something maybe CLOSER to that than having no significance beyond the words on the page.<\/p>\n

At the most basic level it can communicate that the one giving the blessing actually put some time and effort into it. That can communicate love. Like going out of the way to buy your wife the exact kind of special orchid she likes instead of just getting her any old bouquet of flowers at the grocery store. So that’s real power, but it doesn’t leave the confines of our own heads.<\/p>\n

Some would say that God is very INTERACTIVE with mankind in real time. He works with our prayers (or blessings in this case) and that what we think and do actually has an effect on God and how he then chooses to act and relate to us. Others think the very notion of that is silly and even dangerous. So what kind of power does a blessing like this have?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted by Tall Skinny Kiwi, but it is very much worth reprinting! Beannacht (“Blessing”) by John O\u2019Donohue, from his book of Christian and Celtic wisdom titled Anam Cara. On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble, may the clay dance to balance you.And when your eyes freeze … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A Blessing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moscowcoffeereview.com\/carpecakem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}